Joyce Oates - Mudwoman

Not as a woman, and not sexual.

Somehow else.

Soon after the senior prom to which M.R. had not been invited, M.R.’s prettiest girl-classmates were married, and pregnant; pregnant, and married. Some were soon divorced, and became “single mothers”—a very different domestic destiny from the one they’d envisioned for themselves.

Very few of M.R.’s classmates, female or male, went on to college. Very few achieved what one might call careers. Of her graduating class of 118 students very few left Carthage or Beechum County or the southern Adirondacks, where the economy had been severely depressed for decades.

One of those regions in America, M.R. had said, trying to describe her background to her astronomer-lover who traveled more frequently to Europe than to the rural interior of the United States, where poverty has become a natural resource: social workers, welfare workers, community-medical workers, public defenders, prison and psychiatric hospital staffers, family court officials—all thrived in such barren soil. Only fleetingly had M.R. considered returning, as an educator—once she’d left, she had scarcely looked back.

Don’t forget us, Meredith! Come visit, stay a while …

We love our Merry.

M.R. had pushed her laptop aside and was examining road maps, laid out on a table in the library-lounge for hotel guests.

Particularly M.R. was intrigued by a detailed map of Tompkins County. She hoped to determine where she’d asked Carlos to stop. South and west of Ithaca were small towns—Edensville, Burnt Ridge, Shedd—but none appeared to be the town M.R. was looking for. With her forefinger M.R. traced a thin curvy blue stream—this must be the river, or the creek—south of Ithaca; but there was only a tiny dot on that stream as of a settlement too minuscule to be named, or extinct.

“Why is this important? It is not important.”

She whispered aloud. She was puzzled by her disappointment.

Abruptly the map ended at the northern border of Tompkins County but there were maps of adjoining New York State counties; there was a road map of New York State that M.R. eagerly unfolded, with no hope that she could fold it neatly back up again. Some crucial genetic component was missing in M.R., she could never fold road maps neatly back up again once she unfolded them….

In the Neukirchen household, Konrad had been the one to carefully, painstakingly re-fold maps. Agatha had been totally incapable, vexed and anxious.

It feels like some kind of trick. It can’t be done!

M.R. saw: to the north and east of Tompkins County was Cortland County—beyond Cortland, Madison—then Herkimer, so curiously elongated among other, chunkier counties; beyond Herkimer, in the Adirondacks, the largest and least populated county in New York State, Beechum.

At the northwestern edge of Beechum County, the city of Carthage.

How many miles was it? How far could she drive, on a whim? It looked like less than two hundred miles, to the southernmost curve of the Black Snake River in Beechum County. Which computed to about three hours if she drove at sixty miles an hour. Of course, she wouldn’t have to drive as far as Carthage; she could simply drive, with no particular destination, see how far she got after two hours—then turn, and drive back.

How quickly her heart was beating!

M.R. calculated: it was just 1:08 P.M. She’d been waiting for her hotel room for nearly twenty minutes. Surely in another few minutes, the desk clerk would summon her, and she could check into the room?

The reception began at 5:30 P.M.—but no one would be on time. And then, at about 6 P.M., everyone would arrive at once, the room would be crammed with people, no one would notice if M.R. arrived late. Dinner was more essential of course since M.R. was seated at the speakers’ table—that wasn’t until 7 P.M. And of course, the keynote address at 8 P.M….

There was time—or was there? Her brain balked at calculations like a faulty machine.

“Absurd. No. Just stop.”

The spell was broken by the cell phone ringing at M.R.’s elbow. The first stirring notes of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

M.R. saw that the caller ID was UNIVERSITY—meaning the president’s office. Of course, they were waiting to hear from her there.

“Yes, I’ve arrived. Everything is fine. In a few minutes I’ll be checked in. And Carlos is on his way back home.”

It was a fact: Carlos had departed. M.R. had thanked him and dismissed him. Late in the afternoon of the third day of the conference Carlos would return, to drive M.R. back to the University.

Of course, M.R. had suggested that Carlos stay the night—this night—at the hotel—at the University’s expense—to avoid the strain of driving a second five-hour stretch in a single day. But Carlos politely demurred: Carlos didn’t seem to care much for this well-intentioned suggestion.

It was a relief Carlos had left, M.R. thought. The driver had lingered in the lobby for a while as if uncertain whether to leave his distinguished passenger before she’d actually been summoned to her hotel room; he’d insisted upon carrying her suitcase into the hotel for her—this lightweight roller-suitcase M.R. could handle for herself and in fact preferred to handle herself, for she rested her heavy handbag on it as she rolled it along; but Carlos couldn’t bear the possibility of being observed—by other drivers?—in the mildest dereliction of his duty.

“Ma’am? Should I wait with you?”

“Carlos, thank you! But no. Of course not.”

“But if you need …”

“Carlos, really! The hotel has my reservation, obviously. It will be just another few minutes, I’m sure.”

Still he’d hesitated. M.R. couldn’t determine if it was professional courtesy or whether this dignified gentleman in his early sixties was truly concerned for her—perhaps it was both; he told her please call him on her cell phone if she needed anything, he would return to Ithaca as quickly as possible. But finally he’d left.

M.R. thought Of course. His life is elsewhere. His life is not driving a car for me.

Questioned afterward Carlos Lopes would say I asked her if I should stay—her room wasn’t ready yet in the hotel—she said no, I should leave—she was working in a room off the lobby—I said maybe she would need me like if they didn’t have a room for her and I could drive her to some other hotel and she laughed and said no Carlos! That is very kind of you but no—of course there will be a room.

As the desk clerk would say Her room was ready for her at about 1:15 P.M. She was gracious about waiting, she said it was no trouble. But then a few minutes later she called the front desk—I spoke with her—she asked about a car rental recommendation. Sometime after that she must have left the hotel. Nobody would’ve seen her, the lobby was so crowded. Her room was empty at 8:30 P.M. when some people from the conference asked us to open it. There was no DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. The lights were off. Her suitcase was on the bed opened but mostly unpacked and her laptop was on the bed, not opened. There weren’t any signs of anybody breaking into the room or anything disturbed and there was no note left behind.

By 2 P.M. she was in the rental car driving north of Ithaca.

Her lungs swelled with—relief? Exultation?

She’d told no one where she was going or even that she was going—somewhere.

Of course, M.R. was paying for the compact Toyota with her personal credit card.

Of course, M.R. knew that her behavior was impulsive but reasoned that since she’d arrived early at the conference, in fact hours before the conference officially began, this interlude—before 6 P.M., or 6:30 P.M.—was a sort of free fall, like gravity-less space.